A national feed-in-tariff system (properly priced and written)would lead to a dramatic increase in renewable resources and a brighter future for all of us. Ontario, Canada is just beginning to see the fruits of their feed-in-tariff (FIT) system with the addition of 20,000 jobs and billions in investments. To bad big oil & gas would never let that happen. Since we (USA) are one of the leaders in our contribution to climate change it would be nice for us to exercise our leadership again in correcting the problem. Let's pray, work hard and hope for real leadership at the to make this a reality!

Energy ≠ electricity. Electricity constituted 17.2% of global final energy consumption in 2008 (IEA figures). Transport and heat are far more significant. So why do energy debates always focus on electricity? They mix up fuels, uses, technologies, as though energy is homogeneous and our energy needs can be tackled by a few magic bullets in the electricity sector?

Why, in a magazine called The Economist, did the only person to mention externalities use it in defence of the type of policy (targeted winner-picking) that cannot be defended by that concept?

By the same token, why do proponents (internal and external) on both sides of the debate assume good central knowledge and foresight, and altruistic intentions of policy-makers? Contributions on this subject are always a battle between competing certainties about complex issues (e.g. climate change), technologies (nuclear, CCS, offshore wind), preferences and prospects.

We know almost nothing (qv Socrates). Unskewed markets allow us to discover and adapt. The more complex the problem, the less appropriate is intervention to try to steer outcomes towards pre-judged solutions; and the more tempted are intellectuals (in the Hayekian sense) to argue that government should do exactly that (based, of course, on each intellectual's masterplan).

Government has an important role, to provide an institutional framework that supports efficient discovery of better responses to changing circumstances, knowledge and preferences. But the moment government gets involved to influence those responses, it kills the mechanism that harnesses human nature to evolve better solutions in a changing, uncertain and subjective world.

Climate-change evangelising and denial are both based on misplaced, arrogant certainty. Anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is a risk of which we should take account. Like any other risk, it has a value. And like other risks, that value cannot be set realistically and responsively by central authorities. It should be discovered in markets.

That value cannot be discovered by pretending that one factor (non-carbon) is a commodity, and creating a pseudo-market where the outcome (a given reduction in the pseudo-commodity) and participation (via allocations) is prejudged. There is a better way to create an institutional framework that enables the externality to be valued in a risk market. But first people have to abandon their failed ideas, and vested interests have to be weened off the institutional edifices that have been constructed around current ways of thinking about climate change.

Political economy evolved to try to explain to governments why the perverse and unintended consequences of their actions usually outweighed their intended effects (to the limited extent that those effects were desirable or achievable). Unfortunately, economics became captured during the twentieth century by people who set out to provide the tools and justifications for government to do exactly what real economics explained they should not do. The Economist should rename itself The Politicist or The Socialist, and university economics departments should likewise merge themselves with the politics and sociology departments for which they are really a front.

Then perhaps we could found a Classical Economist magazine that promoted real economics. That magazine would not waste its time prognosticating (or inviting prognostication) on the merits of different technologies, or whether one or another probabilistic interpretation of complex data was correct. It would accept that academics, journalists, politicians and civil servants are the last people to have a clue about the real strengths and weaknesses of competing alternatives.

There would be no debate in its pages about how much wind, nuclear, CCS or other technology we should have and how governments could ensure we had that right amount. Instead, it would argue for the institutional framework that most effectively internalised the external cost (or benefit) of the risk of AGW, and stood back as the market went through the continuous iterative process of discovering better responses to the risk, and better understanding of the risk, resulting in changes to the valuation of the risk, producing in turn a need for responses and understanding to evolve to that changed valuation, and so on.

By the way, I run a renewable energy business and have been in the industry for nearly 25 years. It is possible (though difficult) to be in this industry and yet loath the dominance of vote-buying, empire-building and rent-seeking in the determination of policy in this sector (as most others). Is it possible to get elected, promoted or sell magazines by arguing that government should simply create the impartial institutional framework and stay the hell out of commercial and technical choices?

Honestly, I'm not sure if I understood everything you said but I do firmly believe that energy diversity is the key to a stable, secure energy future just as it is in financial investing. Does it make sense to continue to be addicted to fossil fuels especially in light of increased and competing national interests? In light of the increasing risk of climate change and a proper respect for life, a carefully written feed-in-tariff (FIT) system appears to be a reasonable approach to tackling a complex problem in the real world. What are your thoughts on this?

Renewables won't ever be sufficient to meet current and projected energy needs, least of all for transportation. The sacrifice in near term consumption that would be needed (to invest in renewable production) for renewable output to keep up with the decline in available conventional energy sources is simply too great.

Unless we believe that fusion is within our grasp, the solution remains (for energy and a host of Earth's other built-in limits) human population reduction. But by all means it's fine to keep building windmills and solar farms until the plague be unleashed.

Renewable energy sources are vital in today's world. We consume so much energy across the globe and it is only going to increase as our population exponentially grows. With so many people using energy and resources there is a great need for increased renewable energy. Our natural resources will not last forever. I think that the certain areas of renewable energy are more important than others. For example the sun is always going to rise and set, therefore solar power is crucial. Water will continue to flow through rivers unless somehow the main source is altered. So a focus in water is important as well. I feel that wind power should be focused on a little less because of its inconsistency.

There are some assumptions in your comments that might be challenged, dustind. First, energy use in industrialized countries id not growing proportionally to population. In some countries energy use has flattened out. Second, the population of the world is not growing exponentially. The growth rate is decreasing and is projected to flatten out in less than 50 years.

Nevertheless, your points about the potential diversity in energy sources is a good one. There is a great deal of effort in utilizing the northern forests as a renewable source of energy, particularly for heating.

The fact that Asia is rising so much in their use of renewable energy definitely shows the direction and magnitude of their growth. Asia is becoming increasingly more prevalent and powerful in today's world.

I found this chart to be rather interesting. I would not have guessed that hydropower was the most used renewable energy source in the world. Also,I thought that solar energy would have be used a lot more. The chart on the right did not surprise me too much though. Each continent uses about as much as I would have expected. Europe and Asia are fast becoming renewable energy giants.

Yes, the sun provides more than enough energy for our electric needs every day. The problem is it is diffuse. Hydro power is efficient because it can be stored, yes, but more importantly by channeling rain into rivers gravity and geography has concentrated a great deal of potential energy in one place where we can capture it. Millions of years ago, swamps full of organic material died and were converted to petroleum, nicely squeezed into compact and energy dense hydrocarbon molecules stored underground. Thank you ancient food web and geological processes for concentrating that energy. Nuclear power is a dense source, but only after you've concentrated the U-235 into fuel rods.

In contrast, while there is an enormous amount of radiative energy from the sun hitting the earth at any moment, the amount hitting each square meter is very small. There is an enormous amount of energy in the wind, but there is a very small amount hitting a given windmill. Directly harvesting wind and solar energy will always be hard because it is too diffuse. Storage is also a problem, but harvesting energy from a diffuse source will always be the hardest problem to overcome. Entropy is the enemy of renewable power, and entropy always wins (2nd law of Thermodynamics).

Having read the comments here, I am once again staggered by the scientific ignorance of some of the most educated people in our society.

I don't know what your occupation is. I'm a professor in a university in France (no prizes for guessing the subject I teach) and I can only agree with your lament about the general scientific ignorance of the population. Even amongst our students, the overall level of knowledge outside the courses that they took last semester is "disappointing".

It must be the poor teaching we offer ...

Concerning the importance of entropy, one could add that entropy always wins, except at absolute zero, the little problem being that we can never get there.
Entropy as a topic seems to be particularly difficult to grasp - it must be the poor teaching we offer ...

Yes, entropy wins in the long run...the very long run. Before we all lie down to await heat death, some of these alternatives are probably worth a bit of exploration.

The graphic is misleading in that it only identifies large scale installations. Technology at the individual level is not accounted for.

A huge percentage of energy consumed worldwide is used for temperature maintenance of the home and for the prep and preservation of foods. These activities require energy, but are site specific, heat focused and at a small scale. The fact that this energy does not need to travel or be converted to multiple forms prior to utilization creates the potential for a natural efficiency that can offset a great deal of the benefits of more concentrated sources. The trick is making the mental shift from looking to one or two energy sources at an individual level to utilizing a range of technologies as appropriate for the user's location and needs.

I'd like to see how much all the renewable energy sources have grown since the past few years, but this article makes it feel a little bit promising. I think that solar will hopefully be the most promising form, considering the sun powers life. It might be easier to find sources of hydro electric power, but I don't think that will remain true in the long run.

The government not only needs to create incentives to increase investment in renewable energy but to also make it costly to use non renewable energy otherwise we will never see the significant change in the way we think about using oil. Removal of subsidies comes to mind.

Maybe as time goes on, they will find ways to make renewable energy not so costly. Of course Asia, the new powerhouse, is conducting the most work regarding renewable energy. If everyone puts more effort into figuring out a way to increase the use of this energy and keep the costs down then it will pick up very quickly. This is a very important aspect of the future.

I think we need to get this under control and underway as soon as possible. The way in which we use oil and other natural resources are putting serious strain on the environment and other things around our planet. It has to be fixed soon or there is going to be serious consequences.

This charts presented here are rather interesting. I found the major growth in hydro-power to be quite telling of what may possibly happen in the future if too much is used for energy. I applaud the steep growth in solar power, which is abundant in various parts of the world that often does not have many other sources of renewable energy. However, there are both negative and positive effects of win energy/wind turbines. Modifications and advancements in technology need to be made to produce more efficient, safer wind turbines. There are both positive and negative implications about the locations of renewable energy infrastructure being built. Because Asia is experiencing growth in basically every aspect, it is necessary for the region to develop its technology. However, we must not forget places like Africa, which will have no chance to catch up to other parts of the world unless it produces similar technological advancements.

in the chart asia leading the renewable energy production as compare to the europe because eruope with enormus technology is equal to the asia which is consist on developing countries like, south asia,far east asia etc. europe and america shoudl more inverst on renewabel energy, they have world largest economies.
hydro potential big in many conutries like pakistan,china,india and other asian countries.

I must say I am surprised by the numbers, I didn't think that the world would move towards reusable energies so quickly. I expected numbers like these close to 2020, because we rely heavily on fossil fuels. Also, I wouldn't except to see Latin America and Asia to come up with these kinds of numbers so soon. However, reusable technology for energy is slowly but steadily becoming cheaper and efficient. I bet by 2030s majority of the energy source will be reusable energy. This article has changed my belief of mankind relaying majority on fossil fuels.

This is quite an interesting article. I would not have thought that hydropower was providing the majority of our power. I had always thought that fossil fuels were behind the majority. This is very good though, there are few things that are as green and renewable as water!